Reply to the Caves et al. Comment on “Moving the Needle in MMA: On the Marginal Revenue Product of UFC Fighters”

Abstract

Caves, Tatos, and Urschel (Caves et al.) emphasize that I declined to share my dataset, but the context of that decision warrants further elaboration. All three authors have a clear connection to the plaintiffs in the active antitrust case, Le et al. v. Zuffa LLC (UFC Lawsuit), and two of the authors – Dr. Caves and Mr. Urschel – consulted for the plaintiffs and may yet provide future support. I have zero financial interest in the case and felt it improper to provide data to individuals with an obvious interest in either side of an ongoing, multibillion-dollar lawsuit. This was my personal “barrier to data disclosure.” In addition, all data used in my analyses are publicly available and both sides have significant resources at their disposal. Caves et al. advance two primary lines of criticism: (1) concerns regarding comparisons of marginal revenue product (MRP) and compensation in the presence of fixed Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) revenues and (2) concerns regarding my use of Google Trends search interest data as a proxy for UFC fighter popularity. I leave it to readers to form their own conclusions regarding the authors’ conflicts of interest and address their two substantive criticisms below.